For years, I sort of would try to write a story that somehow fit the title. And I don't think it happened for maybe another four years that I actually thought of a story, the plot of a story that corresponded to that phrase.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Once, I thought I had a novel, and it turned out it was only a short story. I wrote about 800 pages, but it ended up being a short story. And if it ever happens to me again, I Will Go Insane.
I wasted a lot of years working on my writing and very grandly saying, 'And now... My Novel!,' which would soon be reduced to a short story, then to a paragraph.
My life has been a dream. If someone had to write a story about it, it would seem a little unreal. It's the kind of story I would read and say, 'Nah, that's not possible.'
I might see something on TV and get inspired to write about it. I can't sit down and plan to write. It has to come to me in my head like someone telling me the words.
I always take a story that's kind of out there, like an urban myth. I take some possibility that people imagine, that they are familiar with, and try to turn it into a story.
To begin with, I want to tell a good story, a story that people will listen to and that they'll think this is true, even if it is a story that might be defined as - as myth or legend or even fanciful.
As a matter of writing philosophy, if there is one, I try not to ever plot a story. I try to write it from the character's point of view and see where it goes.
I came up with a story and I wrote it.
I would try to write my own story about some East Coast suburbanite having an affair or something like that. So I did that for maybe two years or so, and it just wasn't working for me at all.
From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me.